Mike Modano Finally Reveals What Mike Babcock Said To Him Before Scratching Him For Game 1500
Mike Modano has finally revealed what former Leafs coach Mike Babcock said to him before scratching him for what would have been his 1500th NHL game.
Mike Modano enjoyed an illustrious NHL career that included 561 goals scored, 1,374 points, a Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars, being named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary Team, and being the 2nd most prolific American-born player in NHL history behind only Brett Hull - all of which made him very deserving of his Hall-of-Fame induction in 2019.
Modano spent the first 20 years of his career within the Stars' organization that included four seasons with the Minnesota North Stars after being selected first overall during the 1988 NHL Entry Draft. However, at the end of the 2009-10 season, the Stars said they would not re-sign the franchise legend, which prompted him to join the Detroit Red Wings instead of retiring or even signing with his home-state Minnesota Wild.
Unfortunately, he was limited to just 40 games during the 2010-11 season due to a wrist injury but he was still well on-track to reach career milestone game number 1,500 as long as he was healthy until the end of the season.
This is where the infamous story came about with Mike Babcock scratching Modano during the Wings' last game of the season, coming 1 game short of the 1500 mark. Modano opened up about the situation on the Spittin' Chiclets podcast this week.
Paul Bissonnette then asks at the end if that was his response to Modano saying that he won't get to 1,500 career games played if he was made a healthy scratch against Minnesota to which the Hall-of-Famer responded with:
"Yeah"
The Wings won the Central Division crown that season with several games to spare, which would have been even more reason to keep Modano in the lineup. They were eventually ousted in the second-round of the playoffs in 7 games to the San Jose Sharks and Modano only dressed for 2 games.
Babcock is known for his controversial coaching tactics whether it was with Modano, Mike Commodore, Mitch Marner during his tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and during his very brief stint with the Columbus Blue Jackets when he was snooping on the phones of his players.
While Modano has all the aforementioned accolades it was truly a hard-headed move from Babcock to not only sit him during the penultimate game - against the Minnesota Wild of all teams - which allowed him to completely miss the milestone but then to call him while he was at home, which didn't allow Modano to have the chat face-to-face.
Adding further that it was for the bigger picture and to win a Stanley Cup just for Modano to have played twice during the post-season, is just a brutal way for the Hall-of-Famer's career to come to an end.
It was also mentioned years after that GM Ken Holland had no idea about the plan to healthy scratch him during the penultimate game of the season and that it rubbed several of the team's veterans the wrong way, including Kris Draper and Niklas Lidstrom.
It's hard to believe Babcock was brought back to the NHL after a lot of his controversies started rolling out, but for his tenure with the Blue Jackets to have lasted just a few months, is probably all the more reason to believe his NHL coaching career is all but over.
